A senior Royal Air Force (RAF) official has claimed that the country’s military training program is up to 10 years out of date, affecting its preparedness for a potential full-scale war.
Air Commodore Blythe Crawford, who leads the service’s Air and Space Warfare Centre, said at a recent conference that “nobody” in the British Armed Forces is training for modern battlefield scenarios similar to what is seen in Ukraine.
He further claimed that even the military’s synthetic environments are focused on outdated tactics, which were suitable and effective a decade ago.
To address this, Crawford called on the military and government to take necessary data from Ukrainian frontlines and rapidly adopt it into training systems.
This, he said, would allow British soldiers to train “against the battlefield from 24 hours ago, rather than training against the battlefield from five to ten years ago.”
Crawford’s remark comes as pressure builds on the government to address vital gaps in military readiness.
‘Must be Ready for War in 3 Years’
NATO countries have significantly raised their defense spending amid concerns that Russia may attack one of them if it succeeds in Ukraine.
The UK could be targeted for being one of Kyiv’s most important military backers in the ongoing war.
Chief of the General Staff, Sir Roly Walker, has already said the British military should double its lethality and be prepared to fight a Ukraine-style war in three years.
By the end of the decade, he said he expects the armed forces to have tripled the firepower it has now.
‘Unfit for War’
Despite its recent investments in defense, concerns are mounting that the UK armed forces would not be able to survive an all-out war due to ongoing recruitment and stockpile shortages.
A defense committee hearing earlier this year revealed that the military is “consistently overstretched,” making it unfit for an armed conflict similar to the war in Ukraine.
It is also reportedly “too small” to survive a Russian invasion.
Government data released last month showed more people left the British military than signed up in 2023, further exacerbating its recruitment crisis.